Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will address two of the franchise's most annoying issues.
For starters, Infinity Ward has confirmed that the campaign for the newly announced Modern Warfare 4 will be playable offline. Previously, if you were disconnected from the internet or unable to access the game's servers, the entire game was unusable. This was frustrating for those who wanted to play the single-player campaigns, and something that was highlighted as an issue when PlayStation Network had an extensive outage last year.
Second, Infinity Ward is looking to address the "update requires restart" issue that has been present in Call of Duty for the last six years or so. Whenever players boot up a modern Call of Duty game, there is a significant chance that the game will have to reboot itself due to an update. It's extremely annoying and can delay getting into the action by several minutes, not to mention there aren't really many other games that do this. Thankfully, Modern Warfare 4 is aiming to nix this and create a smoother experience when launching the game.
These are just two of many changes coming to Call of Duty this year. Modern Warfare 4 will not launch on last-gen consoles, but will come to Nintendo Switch 2. This will be the first time since 2013 that Call of Duty has been on a Nintendo platform, and it's expected to have full parity with the other versions of the game. Unfortunately, the lack of last-gen versions also means Warzone support will cease on last-gen consoles this fall. It marks the end of an era for the free-to-play battle royale, but hopefully, it will lead to a game that no longer feels held back by older hardware.
We recently previewed Modern Warfare 4 and noted that it feels like "a confident step forward for the series" because it is no longer held back by old ideas and technology. Of course, the jury is still out on if the whole game will stick the landing, but initial impressions of the game are very promising. The campaign of Modern Warfare 4 will take players around the globe, but will mainly revolve around a tense conflict between North and South Korea. Captain Price will also be dealing with the fallout of his actions at the end of Modern Warfare 3, resulting in tensions between him and Task Force 141.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will release on October 23 for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
